Fountain Inn Cotton Mill

Front: Fountain Inn Cotton Mill, which stood here from 1898 to 2002, was first owned and operated by brothers A.J., C.E., R.L., and W.J. Graham. Built with 5,000 spindles, it expanded to 10,000 spindles and later to 17,000 spindles, making cotton yarns and cloth. In 1906 textile mill entrepreneur John T. Woodside bought the mill from the Grahams. A few years later it was described as “among the best mills in the South.” Reverse: This mill had 250 employees in 1907, with a population of 450 in a mill village of eighty houses that included a company store, recreation building, baseball field, and two churches. The two-room school operated until 1924. In 1911 this mill was merged with mills in Greenville and Simpsonville to create Woodside Cotton Mills. Sold to Dan River Mills in 1956, this mill was closed in 1983 and was demolished in 2002.